Data Point: Microsoft Walks Away From XP, but Many Others Haven’t

Twelve years after the debut of Windows XP, Microsoft says it is time to move on. Many people haven’t.

Microsoft has long said this day was coming. It even had a countdown clock on its website — it now reads zero hour. There have been not one, not two, but three new versions of Windows since XP’s grassy hills and blue skies first graced our CRT monitors.

Even so, nearly three in 10 computers were still running XP as of March, according to data from Net Applications that was charted by Statista. That includes businesses and consumers, and both desktop computers and laptops. Windows 7 clocked in with nearly 49% share, while Windows 8 — the first release combined with the 8.1 update — is just over 11%. (Take heart Windows 8, your “Metro” interface is at least more popular than Vista.) The 3.8% share for Apple’s OS X is a good reminder that while the company’s gadgets fill people’s pockets, its computers still represent a niche of the overall market.

To be clear: Windows XP computers will still work. It’s just that Microsoft will no longer provide security patches and updates to protect the OS from viruses, malware and other threats. It’s up to the computer’s owner to batten down the hatches now. The low-hanging fruit for bad actors just got lower.

As Rachael King and Danny Yadron wrote last week, old platforms die hard. And that’s a problem since so many of the computers still running XP are managing essential services like sewage treatment, water, electricity, ATMs and more. For the average person, Personal Technology columnist Joanna Stern has some tips to survive the end of XP.